The present invention relates to the manufacture or fabrication of separation devices. In one aspect, these devices include filters with precisely-sized and shaped microscopic capillaries. In another aspect, these devices include screens with precisely-sized and shaped microscopic mesh size, as well as adaptive and tailorable particulate filtration mediums based on elastic/plastic deformation. In a further aspect, these devices include fluid separation devices with precisely-sized, shaped microscopic capillaries can be employed to separate one fluid from another on the basis of wettability, chemical, physical, electrical, or magnetic characteristics.
In conventional filters, the filtering medium is either rigid, such as sintered metal filters, foamed metal filters, and many paper filters, or flexible as foamed polymer or cloth filters. Whether the filter is rigid or flexible, there is no filtering medium that has precise control over the pores sizes, shapes, and distribution as well as the characteristics of being adaptive, tailorable, and able to remain unblocked for a wide range of particulate sizes.
Conventional rigid filters possess good mechanical strength and function well to remove particulates from gaseous or liquid mixtures, even at high pressure. However, these conventional rigid filters possess a distribution of porosity. The pores in conventional rigid filters do not have a precise and well-defined cross-sectional shape or size. In addition, they are subject to clogging by particulates. Conventional flexible filters, on the other hand, such as those made from polyurethane foam, consist of a reticulated, that is, open cell, structure. In order to increase throughput and decrease backpressure, the ideal reticulated foam filter consists only of attached ligands. This type of structure does not have much mechanical strength and therefore is not very useful at high pressure. If additional material is added to increase mechanical strength, then the fluid throughput will drop. In addition, this type of structure, as with rigid filters, cannot guarantee an exact pore size, but rather provides a distribution of pore sizes around some average value. This distribution of pore sizes does not allow for a precise threshold for particulate exclusion on the basis of size. Finally, conventional microscopic screening is limited in mesh size and mesh shape, the position and arrangement of the individual mesh openings as well as the types of materials that can be employed.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for fabricating filter media with precisely-sized and shaped microscopic capillaries.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for fabricating screens with precisely-sized and shaped microscopic mesh size.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a method for fabricating fluid separation devices that can separate one fluid from another on the basis of wettability, chemical, physical, electrical, or magnetic characteristics.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.